


The alarm went off again

by OnlySkyAboveMe



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - World War II, F/M, One Shot, War, World War II, depictions of war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-05-24 06:49:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14949672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnlySkyAboveMe/pseuds/OnlySkyAboveMe
Summary: World War II AU





	The alarm went off again

_London, England. 1940-1941._

She will never get used to the quiet, or the darkness. Gone is the London of her childhood; now a black, soulless city by night, fear behind every door and with every gust of wind. She adjusts her father’s tin hat on her head, the bright white W painted on the front herself because the local council had run out of government issue ones. She had wasted no time in volunteering for air raid duties, she slept so little at night anyway these days, and preferred to be the one cranking the warning siren rather than lying in bed waiting for it to sound. They haven’t heard from Casey on the front for several weeks now, and she cannot stand to sit around and do nothing except watch her parents worried faces as the postman passes their door empty handed each evening.

Blackout duty starts earlier now the solstice has passed, and she walks quietly and efficiently around her assigned streets. She rounds the corner and quickly notices the house across the way in violation of the blackout rules. Light pours between the curtains of an upstairs window and she can see firelight crackling through a tear in the black paper in the bay at the front. She knocks swiftly on the front door, “Put that light out” she calls up at the house.

She hears a faint wail from upstairs, followed by footsteps on the stairs which appear to stumble halfway down, another wail sounds, closer to the door this time. A young man answers; dark haired, medium build, and very good looking. He looks a similar age to her - a strange sight to see a man in his early twenties around London these days - and is holding a young boy (maybe 4 or 5 years old) on his hip.

“I’m sorry,” he stutters, holding the crying child close to him, looking stressed and slightly mad, “his mother is in the hospital and he won’t settle, then the curtain rail fell down in his room and scared him. I can’t put _him_ down or _it_ back up!” 

She takes pity on him and offers to come in and help. He holds the step ladder as she re-hangs the curtain sufficiently enough to meet the blackout requirements. He follows her downstairs with the now sleeping boy on his shoulder, she fixes the front window with the newspaper from her pocket. He thanks her profusely, offering her a biscuit from the jar in the kitchen before she goes on her way. He gives her a kind smile as he shows her out the front door, which she returns shyly as she steps back into the darkness.

* * *

 

The Blitz has raged for weeks now, continuous nightly raids by the _Luftwaffe_ lead her to be employed full time as a warden and cause devastating damage to her beautiful city. Tonight she is on duty inside the communal shelter, tasked with checking everyone has their gas masks with them and handing out blankets to those who have not brought their own.

“Hello again,” she hears a voice say above her as she kneels to check the tag of a young girl’s gas mask box.  She turns and stands, mouth flickering into a smile of recognition at the handsome man she had met a few weeks before. Their brief encounter had been the highlight of that week, the worst part of which had been accompanying an elderly woman back to her flattened house in an attempt to find her sweet cat buried in the rubble.

“Hello,” she replies, looking around him curiously, “is your son not with you?”

“My son? Oh, no, Michael is my nephew. I was looking after him the other evening as my mother was on warden duty, and my sister-in-law had to take my niece to hospital with suspected pneumonia. They’re all fine now though,” he explains after her face falls slightly, “they were evacuated out to the Cotswolds last week, thank goodness.”

“Oh,” she says, smiling and meeting his eyes. He smiles back at her, running his hand through his hair, his gas mask slipping off his other shoulder in doing so. She giggles quietly as she bends down to pick it up for him. 

“Thank you,” he says, taking it from her and returning it to his shoulder. He sticks out his hand, “My name is Scott.”

“Tessa,” she replied, shaking his hand with a smile. “I’m sorry I need to get back to my duties, if you’ll excuse me.”

“I’ll stay with you if that’s alright? I won’t get in the way or anything, it’s just that my mother went with them to the Cotswolds and she volunteered me for her warden role, I might as well see what I’ve let myself in for?” She nods and turns back to the pile of blankets next to her and the small queue that had formed.

He remains with her until the end of her shift, walking her back to her door just as her mother appears, putting out the empty milk bottles. “I guess I’ll see you at the warden hut tonight?” he asks hopefully, hands in his pockets, kicking at a bit on gravel in the road.

“I’ll see you then, Scott.”

* * *

Her parents move out of London. They want her to come with them; cannot stand the thought of losing another child to another war. But she is adamant that her place is in the city, doing her bit for the war effort (and staying close to Scott). She moves into a dorm which also houses the nurses from the hospital next door. It’s strictly women only, but no one else in her room works nights like she does, leaving it empty during the day. She sneaks Scott in regularly - it’s forbidden, which makes it all the more thrilling. She isn’t ashamed, (though society would dictate she should be), they’re just two young souls desperately seeking comfort and normalcy amongst the chaos of the destruction of the war around them.

Their roles as wardens become more serious and chaotic as the weeks pass and the bombings go on. Gone are the days of checking gas masks and helping the elderly up and down the stairs. They’re the first people digging through the rubble, they stand guard over unexploded bombs, they fight fires alongside the firemen. Scott once has to catch a baby that is dropped down to him from an upstairs window by its hysterical mother whose staircase had just been blown to pieces. Tessa cries herself to sleep in Scott’s arms one morning after two hours holding the hand of a middle-aged woman as the rescue team desperately tried and failed to lift a heavy piece of debris that was crushing her. Throughout the city and the country panic and fear mounts, and morale is low, but Tessa and Scott plough on with their duties, helping where they can, finding comfort in each other in the darkest times.

* * *

 

The day raid is not expected. They are roused from their beds by the siren late one morning in March, they are not on duty but don their hats and armbands anyway as they make their way to the shelter. They meet up on the street a few hundred metres from the shelter’s entrance, ducking for cover in a doorway as a fleet of _Messerschmitt_ zoom low overhead. Scott hears a cry behind him and turns to see a young mother holding a baby and desperately pulling at the hand of a young girl rooted to the spot in fear as her eyes stare widely at the chaotic sky above her. He pushes Tessa forwards towards the shelter as he turns to pick up the girl, putting his helmet on her head. 

The familiar whistles of the bombs falling fills the air, but louder than he has ever heard. The planes are too close, and they are exposed here. He turns towards the shelter and hurries forwards as fast as he can, clutching tightly to the girl in his arms, his hand pulling the mother and her baby along with him. He spots Tessa waiting in the entrance, the hand-painted ‘W’ on her helmet glinting in the sun as he draws ever nearer. Then, suddenly, the ground between them rocks as the bomb hits, exploding on the road with such force than Scott is knocked backwards off his feet. He hears bricks and mortar crumbling around him, and the sound of tin and corrugated metal bending and screeching under the pressures of force and heat. His ears ring as he struggles to move, the young girl now pulled tightly into his chest, his arms wrapped around her back. He stands slowly, unaware of the noise of the jets still swooping above him. He turns to the place where the shelter’s entrance, and Tessa, once stood. But instead of her waiting arms and comforting embrace he saw only rubble, dust and smoke.

Blood streams from his ears and his nose as he collapses back down onto his knees, he inhales the ash and cement dust as he fills his lungs to scream into the abyss,

“TESSA!”

**Author's Note:**

> *hides and runs for cover* (please don't hate me)
> 
> I did some research for this, but my sincerest apologies to Historians/Scholars for inaccuracies here!


End file.
